Letters to You
by storiesbycandlelight
Summary: Daltonverse fic! Micah/Shane: Once upon a time, there was no prince and no princess. There's just a fairytale. Rated T for a swear here and there.


A/N: So I wrote Micah/Shane- Randerson? Micane? ...Mine? I prefer 'Mine,' it's cute. Okay, several things I wanna say about this fic. First of all, let me just add an extra little disclaimer here: I love Rane. Seriously, I think Rane is adorable and I puke ranebows all the time, sometimes when I just think about them. I want Rane to happen and so all you Rane lovers out there, I know where you're coming from! Seriously! At first, when I saw Micah, I was all "GTFO here, ya loser, it ain't gonna happen." But once my initial shock died down, I realized I really liked the idea of Micah and Shane. They loved each other and I wanted to capture that, and Micah's feelings about everything that went down. So, this is a 'Mine' fic and it's from Micah's point of view. If you don't wanna read it, hey, that's cool. I totally get it, no hard feelings at all. :)

Also in this fic, you get to meet an OC- Kaya! She appeared randomly. I don't have her in any other stories, nor is she based off of anyone. She just popped up and said hey, and I grew to like her quite a lot. :) I don't think she'll be in any other stories, but I'll think of her fondly when I think of friends Micah made.

I'm also a little worried about the tense changes. I've never had two tenses in one story before. So that's weird and we'll see what you guys think about it. It might be distracting...I dunno. You live and learn.

So, without further ado, here's "Letters to You"! Feel free to review if you want. Or don't. But seriously, if you can drop in a quick word, about anything at all, I would appreciate it.

Disclaimer: I AM SO NOT CP COULTER. MICAH AND SHANE AND OTHERS ARE NOT MY CHARACTERS. ONLY KAYA. IF I WAS CP COULTER, I'D MAKE RANE CANON ALREADY AND JOGAN WOULD BE ALREADY RULING THE SCHOOL. KK THANKS

* * *

Once upon a time, there's no prince and no princess. There's just a fairytale.

* * *

Micah has read so, so, so many books and yet he's never found a book that does not thrill him in some way. Which is weird, because for Micah, books have lost some of their initial surprise, as he's become so adapted to recognizing common themes, the rising and falling of the action, the hero and the villain. Sometimes, he can be caught off guard. He'll have to stop and think about what he just read and he'll smile and get excited and then quickly dive back in, making new predictions and theories, gathering evidence as he turns each word over in his mind and flips to the next page.

He can't predict things in real life though. It's hard identifying the heroes and the villains, the patterns, the rising action, the climax just around the corner—it always sneaks up on him. Maybe that's why he likes books so much. He can wander into that paper world and feel safe and at home, whereas in real life, in his real home, he will feel like a stranger.

Shane snuck up on him too, like everything else. Micah would have never guessed that it would be _Shane_, Shane of all people. Shane was not the archetypical hero type. If he was plopped into a fantasy novel, he would be the comic relief, the good-natured sidekick with a heart of gold. No, his brother, Blaine, would be the dapper hero, not excitable, ever-smiling, magical Shane.

Micah would often write about Shane, after he ran away. He'd write long, long, long letters—not _to _Shane, but about him. They were addressed to Mr. Anderson. He did not send these long letters, but he folded them up and stuck them in between the pages of all his books, usually placing them in his favorite parts of the story. And one day, while hiding in a Borders, sipping nervously on his tea, he would flip a page and the letter would be there—Shane would be there—and Micah would smile.

If only he ever got the nerve to send the letters. Or to write to Shane instead. Explain why he couldn't ever come back, that he was no hero, no knight in shining armor, and that there were some villains that Micah couldn't face…that were even scarier than Mr. Anderson.

But if he ever did do something like that—write Shane, or find him again—Micah knew that that chapter of his life would be done. It would close. Shane would be immortalized only in words, becoming a character in a book, rather than a person in his life. And so it was the only story that Micah refused to finish.

* * *

Once upon a time, in the middle of a food court, he shares his unfinished story with a bookworm like himself.

It's brisk, unfriendly November, holiday decorations exciting the population so thoroughly that the mall is constantly humming. Micah has already bought his presents for his family, and for a few friends in the book club that he was a part of—all his presents were books, of course, and they were stacked on the table of the food court, where he sat with his notebook, a pen scratching out another letter.

"Oh my gosh, is that _Paper Towns?"_

Micah, startled, looks up and sees a young teenage girl peering at the book on the top of the pile.

"Sorry," the girl says quickly, "Sorry I just—are you a nerdfighter too? Oh wow, why am I even…sorry, I'm being weird."

He smiles at her. She's young. 14, 15? Her rambling reminds him of Shane. "No, no, it's fine, really. I like it when people talk to me about books."

The girl beams. "Really? Me too!" She drops the bags in her arms onto the floor with a giant thud and then bends down and begins searching through them all, moving some things around before pulling out a copy of _Looking for Alaska._ She holds it up like a trophy.

"It's my favorite!" she squeals. "It inspired me to check out this one book containing over 500 people's dying words. My mom thought it was creepy, which is why I bought her this for Christmas. Plus I got my own copy. And my friend a copy—not that you care. You look busy writing or—I should go—shoot, where's my purse?"

"Behind you," Micah's smile grows as the girl turns around and finds her abandoned purse sitting there. "Why don't you join me? Really, I don't mind. I could use the company and I haven't talked literature in a while."

The girl's eyes grow and shine, and she grins again. "Awesome! Sure! I'm waiting for my mom to pick me up anyway—" and so she plops down across from him, piling her bags underneath the table and haphazardly throwing her purse onto the table, nearly knocking over Micah's green tea. He barely saves it from tipping over and then holds it in his lap. He has a feeling it's not safe.

"So…are you writing something important?" The girl asks after only a split second's hesitation. She obviously did not mind invading his privacy.

But Micah doesn't mind either; it's been a while since he talked to anyone new and he likes meeting new people. They break the monotony of what had become a boring, structured life. "Yeah. At least, it's important to me."

"What is it? Is it a story? Oh my gosh, I bet you are an author, aren't you?" The girl starts to talk quicker. "To be perfectly honest with you, I totally thought you were an author at first. You look like it. Your glasses, and hair and everything looks really… writer…ry. You look like you should be hanging around a coffeeshop, actually."

Micah's lips twitch in amusement, "I'm not an author," he answers.

"Not a published one at least," the girl grins. "But that's still a story, isn't it?"

Micah looks down at his letter, and the pen feels heavy in his hand. "…Yeah," he says slowly. "There's a story in it."

"I sorta write too. Not well, but I'm part of a writing group," she reaches into her purse and fumbles inside for a while before pulling out a few sheets of paper with typed writing on it. "If you want, we can share our stories. I promise I'm not harsh or anything, seriously, I have this problem about liking EVERYTHING. I'm not critical enough."

"I…I dunno," Micah feels his face flush. He rubs the back of his neck and he stares at his letter, one of a hundred, a thousand, all unfinished. "It's …personal."

"The best stories always are," the girl replies. The answer shocks Micah and he looks back up at the young stranger. She's smiling kindly, and for all her excited rambling and chaotic flailing, those words from her mouth are older, wiser, and the only reason Micah swallows, nods, and hands her the letter.

* * *

_Mr. Anderson, _

_When Jude died, there was no way any of us could have survived it without Shane. Me, in particular. _

_I remember the funeral too well. Everything was black, it was even raining on that day, like the sky was sad over Jude's death. But it was more than sad. It was angry. It wasn't just rain, it was thunder and lightning too. We had to move inside as the thunder grew closer, louder and more furious. It was like the sky knew what I was thinking the entire time, like it was screaming for me because I couldn't scream. _

_And Shane knew as well. He saw it on my face or read it in the sky, saw what I saw and felt what I felt. He took my hand. _

"_Squeeze my hand," he whispered to me. His hand was warm, even after being outside so long, in the freezing rain. "As hard as you want."_

_I told him I would just hurt him and I was so sick and tired of people getting hurt. He looked at me and smiled. _

"_Don't worry," He just kept smiling, smiling through the pain I saw in his eyes. "You won't break me." _

_I squeezed his heand until I was gasping, choking, and sobbing and Shane's hand turned red. He cried with me, either out of pain or grief or maybe both—but he never let go. Even after the funeral was over, he never let go. He was the strongest of us all, stronger in ways that Blaine and his silence could never be, and Erin and her ferocity couldn't match. _

_So I hope he's right. I hope I didn't break him. _

_After the funeral, me and Shane hid from everyone. Not on purpose. We loved Erin and Blaine and wanted to be with them, but it got to be too much to handle. It being everything—the crying, the fact that it was really over and done and Jude was in the ground, instead of laughing with us on the steps, snapping annoying photographs every single chance he got. The thought was too hard to bear. We didn't consciously run away, we just moved and we ended up leaving the entire Home without saying goodbye to anyone. _

_The McDonalds we ended up in wasn't far. We ran to it through the rain and then hid in a bathroom stall, huddled close to each other to try and stay warm after getting soaked to the bone. We stayed there for about twenty minutes, foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, half-sleeping. We were so exhausted. _

_Nothing happened. But…well, that's a lie. Everything happened in that dirty stall in McDonalds. I fell in love with Shane there, and his matted curls and his warm hands and his arms hugging me close. We didn't do anything; he just hugged me. I'm the criminal because I fell in love first. _

_

* * *

_

"What happens next?" the girl whispers, her eyes wide like Bambi eyes. "Do you have another chapter?"

Micah takes the letter back and folds it carefully in his hands, holding it flat between his palms. "Yes, but they aren't with me," He replies, and smiles sadly at the girl.

Her phone buzzes and she nearly falls out of her chair at the sudden vibration. She reads a text and pouts, "My mom is here. But—I really really really want to find out what happens next. Please—here's my number. We've gotta talk again or meet up or something, because I need to know—gosh, I'm speechless, it's just so real. It's like, when I'm reading it, I feel like I'm whoever this Mr. Anderson is and—" she stops abruptly, breathes out and starts over, more calmly, "Sorry. I was rambling. I think it's really good. And sad…" only now do the corners of her mouth lift, like the wings of a bird, into a sweet smile, "…but really good. Please, I have to read more of it! Please?"

"Thanks for all that, but…but I don't even know your name," Micah points out.

"OH, sorry!" She scribbles down her name on the napkin she just wrote her number on. "I'm Kaya. What's your name?"

* * *

If he tells her, she'll know that he's the Micah in the letters. So he just shakes his head. "I'll see you some other time, Kaya. But I think you're mother is waiting for you."

It becomes a ritual. Every Saturday, at the food court, he sits, reading or writing, and she shows up, sits down and he gives her whatever letter he has found in his book that week.

* * *

_Dear Mr. Anderson, _

_Shane was amazing through it all. _

_The moment we kissed came two weeks after the funeral. We were still so scattered, all of us—the shock still hadn't even settled, I think, and our sad moments fought with happy ones. We couldn't get our bearings. We barely breathed and sometimes when we laughed, the laugher split our sides and we ended up sobbing on the floor. _

_We started to see each other one-on-one because it was too painful otherwise. Our group dynamic was split, frayed and dysfunctional now that one of our own was gone. But being alone was too terrifying. So we spent time with each other, but not all at once. I would sit and read in absolute silence with Blaine. I would go on walks with Erin, who mostly ambled around, no longer running. And with Shane, I would live. _

_He was never fake. He never pretended the problem was not there, like Blaine tended to do. He was real about everything he was feeling—when he was sad, he told me so and lived it, when he was excited about something he didn't guiltily hide it. So, unlike with the others, I could talk to Shane. It was his honesty and his impulsiveness—how he acted and lived moment-to-moment, never dwelling on any single second—that made the difference and helped me heal, at my own pace. _

_I became almost addicted to him and the way he let it all out, because by being so…so Shane, he let it all out of me too. And when I watched him dance, I found him beautiful and I wept tears of joy instead of anger. _

_It was when he was dancing, actually, that it happened. His movement was so graceful, his body a piece of artwork—I started weeping. _

"_Why are you crying?" he panted, worry all over his brows the instant he saw me tearing up. He sat down next to me and wrapped his long limbs around me without even taking a breath. "Micah, what's-"_

"_Nothing," I gasped through the tears and laughed at myself. "You're so—Shane, you're beautiful." _

_He laughed too. "Beautiful? Micah, are you sure you're okay?" _

_Okay? I didn't know the definition anymore, but I knew that I didn't want to think about how I was, or why I was crying, or why my heart was pounding. I just wanted Shane to keep dancing. _

"_Shut up, Shane, and go dance," I pushed him away from me and urged him to continue, but he wouldn't listen. He tried to sit back down and put his arms around me again, but I struggled and pushed him off once more, reaching over to the boombox and pressing play on his CD so the music could continue. Shane ignored it, pounced on me and it turned into a wrestling match. We pushed at each other, laughing and yelling, kidding around, until his superior strength toppled me over, and I lay back onto the carpet. Shane was on top of me, grinning, and for once, when I looked into his eyes, they were smiling too. _

_And that's when we kissed. It was small. A peck on my lips, initiated by Shane. I pulled him back down though and we kissed, side-by-side, until Shane's CD ran out of songs and the sky ran out of light._

_

* * *

_

_Dear Mr. Anderson, _

_When Shane and I were together, we had no idea what we were doing. Please please please, understand that—we were kids, and we were caught up in each other. We never meant to hurt anyone, let alone you, and Shane, especially, didn't want you hurt. So that's why we kept it a secret. _

_We did a horrible job, though, I know. We tried desperately to keep everything very quiet, but I was so much in love. I loved Shane more than I had ever loved a boy in my life. His energy was my sun, his eyes the stars that I wished upon. He had the purest of hearts and it was only through his love that I ever found the courage I needed to let go of all the anger I felt. I escaped into him, I admit it. I used him almost like I would my books, getting lost in his warm hands and the generous kisses he bestowed on me. I took too much and gave too little, and so everything that happened—it was my fault. Me. Not Shane, never, never, never Shane. _

_Shane did nothing but repair me—he repaired all of us. Shane was never apologetic over his feelings, and his love that he gave me—which I did return wholeheartedly—was enough to reunite our group. It wasn't so painful anymore, to be together, to sit at the same table, eat our lunch, and share our lives again. We never sat at the steps anymore, but we were together. For a while, anyway. _

_And it's probably my fault, like I said. All of it, starting with Erin leaving. The threats started again and it was because of me and the fact that I wasn't responsible with your son. I would never refuse him anything—I simply couldn't—and so we held hands underneath the table and walked each other to class, shoulder-to-shoulder, fingertips kissing. Blaine yelled at us and tried to tell us what could happen. But it didn't—I didn't listen. _

_A week before Erin left, we skipped class and ran down the hallways toward the old closet we were often thrown into by bullies. It was Shane's idea, making out in the closet where our enemies used to banish us, where Blaine and I first began our friendship, and the seeds of the Fabulous five were planted. _

_We didn't make it to the closet though. _

_Shane stopped running and pulling me along. He stopped just outside the gym doors and looked around, and he positively beamed when he saw that no one was around but us. We were alone. He threw his arms around my neck and kissed me right there, in the middle of the hallway. _

_I pulled away. "Are you crazy?"_

"_Hell yes," Shane slipped his arms around my body and brought me closer. "No one's here. It's you and me," His nose nuzzled mine, an Eskimo kiss followed by another chaste kiss on my lips. _

_And I didn't say no. And I didn't pull away. We kissed and we got lost in each other right there, until we heard the sound of someone's tennis shoes squeaking against the floor as they turned the corner and ran. We could only guess that someone had seen us, flipped, and took off. We never saw a face._

_But the threats piled, one on top of another, after that. My books were ripped out from under me and stomped upon. I was forced into a locker and trapped for two periods. The word 'fag' was painted on all my belongings, including every page of my copy of _Catcher in the Rye._ Shane, luckily, didn't get much of the abuse, and I could only hope it was because the person who had seen us kissing had not recognized Shane. _

_Erin was getting more and more worried because of it all. More and more paranoid. When the mutilated photos of her and her girlfriend showed up…she couldn't handle it anymore. _

_But I was the one who aggravated it. Me, who made it so damn hard for everyone else. _

_My fault. _

_

* * *

_

"Is this story true?" Kaya asks him, and takes a sip of her chocolate milkshake. "Because you still haven't told me your name and I've known you for a month now. Is it because you're one of these people in your story? Micah or Shane or Blaine? You did say it was personal."

Micah smoothes out the letter slowly, hands slightly trembling as he stares at the words in blue ink. "Stories always have a grain of truth in them…a piece of an author and the author's experiences."

Kaya cocks her head to the side like a curious rabbit. "It's the most important part, isn't it?"

"Hmm?" he begins to fold the letter up again, as he always does when they are finished with one.

"The grain of truth. It's the most important part. Without it, the fiction couldn't grow."

Micah grins and shakes his head, "You're smarter than you look, Kaya."

Kaya flips her hair back dramatically, "Oh I know. I get that ALL the time." She giggles and happily slurps some more of her milkshake.

Micaht ucks his letter back into his book, rips out a sheet of paper and writes an address on it, along with a time and day. "Next Saturday, I'll be here, at this book convention. You can come at this time, and I'll meet you at the front. If you can, of course."

"I'll try to get my mom to take me," Kaya grins. "And then maybe you'll actually bestow your holy name onto little ol' me, great stranger in the food court?

Micah rolls his eyes. "Maybe."

* * *

_Dear Mr. Anderson. _

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so so so so sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have even been in your house or with your son or in your life at all and I'm sorry, more than sorry. I'm begging for your forgiveness. Please, you have to let me see them again—your sons. Please. _

_I didn't mean for everything to go that way. For you to find out about Blaine—and for Blaine to throw himself into this mess that I made. It's not his fault, okay? He just wanted to protect Shane. _

_Because, god, Shane is the one, Mr. Anderson. Please, don't be mad at him though, because it was my fault. I'm so in love with him that it hurts me not to see him or touch him. When he's around, I'm more myself than when he's not. He brings out the sun for me. He's everything, everything, everything. Don't hurt him, god, please don't. Don't blame him for anything. _

_The truth is that I can't…can't stand seeing Shane in any kind of pain. And we were in pain. Erin had left, abandoned us, eloped with her girlfriend. She was gone in a second. The bullies were getting worse. We couldn't go anywhere anymore—not on walks or to the library, not to fast food joints or coffee shops. They were closing in on us, the whole of the world, and we were finally starting to bend under the pressure. And soon we would break. _

_I know I shouldn't have walked Shane home, but on that day, it was all too much and neither of us wanted to be alone. I should have just kissed him goodbye and left, said no when Shane took my hand and led me indoors. _

_But you should have seen his eyes. All the color in him was draining away. Shane was disappearing underneath the weight of everything that was happening, and so when he kissed me, hard, biting, desperate, I couldn't say no. I had to touch him and kiss him and love him, because otherwise, he really would break. _

_I know you don't want to hear this. You want it to all be a bad dream. But you need to hear it._

_He pushed me to the couch and straddled me there and we pulled and pushed one another, grasping at hands and skin and clothing. My hand ran up the back of his shirt and I felt his spine, his skinny body that grew skinnier and paler with each day he spent hiding us. I tasted salt in his mouth and knew he was crying. I gave him all I could give. _

_He unbuttoned my shirt, and the heat between us grew frantic. There was not a part of me that didn't want him. _

"_I love you," I gasped into his mouth and my hands reached out to wipe away the tears that were on his cheeks. "Ah—Shane—" _

_He slipped my shirt off my shoulders and his own came flying off his body. He wrapped his arms around me in the tightest of embraces and skin met skin and my heart nearly exploded when his lips touched my neck._

"_I love you too," he whispered tremulously against me, his voice small and shaky, "So much, Micah…please…don't—" _

_The door opened. If it didn't creak so much, we would have never known you were coming through that door. But Shane heard the creak and he jumped off of me and flew into the kitchen. I only had time to sit up and then…there you were. _

_Now you know. Now you know what happened. You told me to stay away from your sons or else you would kill me. You told me to run as fast as I could. And I did, like the coward I was, without even looking back to find Shane and apologize. I ran. I didn't even go home, I just bolted, got on the first bus and left. _

_I am so goddamn sorry for everything I have done. I'm so sorry to you for disrespecting your house and your beliefs, even though I think they're wrong. It was wrong to be in there. And for that I'm one hundred percent sorry and god, I need to see your sons again. _

_But more than that, I need you to see that I love your son, Shane, more than anything in this whole wide world, and that's why I'm writing you this letter. And he loved me back. Maybe I shouldn't have been with him in the first place and I should have been more responsible, but…we were just kids. We were in love. And you can't punish us for that. _

_Please, just let me—_

_

* * *

_

The rest is scribbled out.

Kaya lifts her eyes from the letter—the first letter he ever wrote, almost directly after he had been thrown out of Shane's out—and she brings them to Micah. Micah fidgets under her gaze.

It had taken him hours to find it. He had flipped through over seventy different books, but finally found it nestled deep in his copy of _Crime and Punishment._

He swallows, unsure of what to say about this certain letter. Usually he can share something that was on his mind with the younger girl, but today, he feels like his tongue is caught between the pages of his books. And he feels ashamed.

Kaya is thankfully silent, either busy thinking deeply, or letting him think instead.

But he doesn't get a chance to do that. Because he looks up from his table and sees a flash of red hair, hears a laugh, sees a long, strong body and recognizes it all in a second—Erin.

He feels like he's going to throw up. He feels like he's going to have a heart attack, right there, and he doesn't know what to do—so he grabs Kaya and pulls her up, racing around the corner.

"Wha—hey!" Kaya growls. "What the heck, dude? What's wr—"

"Just be quiet," Micah swallows and shuts his eyes. "God, just—I need to…"

"What is it? What? What? I don't get it! Are you okay? Are you having an asthma attack?" Kaya gasps.

"Kaya, stop yelling!"

"THEN STOP FREAKING ME OUT."

Micah slaps his hands around Kaya's mouth. "SHHH. I'm sorry! I just…saw someone."

Kaya's eyes nearly pop out of her head and she yanks away. "Who?"

"N-no one," He says and peeks around the corner to see if she's still there—

Kaya peeks around the corner too, following his gaze. "Who are you looking—OH MY GOD—" Kaya shouts again and Micah pounces on her, hissing at her again.

"Mmmpahhfdkf!" Kaya pulls his hand away from her mouth. "It's Erin! It's Erin, isn't it? The redhead mackin' on her girlfriend!"

Micah's heart pounds. "Wh-what?"

Kaya gasps. "It is. Oh my gosh."

"No it isn't. Erin's a character," he's outright lying to her now, for the first time. "Just a character."

Kaya falls silent and Micah breathes out until all air is expelled from his lungs. He wishes he didn't have to breathe back in again. He wishes he could just die then and there. He leans against the wall, closing his eyes again, asking, inwardly, _why. _

Why here? Why now? Why when he is with Kaya? And why is he so scared, anyway? This is Erin. His friend. He should be jumping up and down to see her, not running and ducking behind corners. Why is he proving himself to be a coward, again and again?

Why doesn't he ever learn?

Kaya's hand slips gently into his. "Micah," she whispers. "Micah, it's okay."

Micah opens his eyes and looks down at the little girl, blinking in disbelief. "How did you know…"

"No one can write about love like you do and not mean it," Kaya says. "Your story is the best story I've ever read, Micah."

"God, I need to recommend some good books to you then," he snorts.

"No, I'm serious, it is!"

"Blasphemy."

"It's really, really good—"

"You like Twilight, don't you?"

"Oh, shut up!" Kaya rolls her eyes. "Shut up and listen to me for once. You need to stop writing letters to Mr. Anderson. You need to write one to Shane."

Micah sighs and shakes his head. "I won't send it anyway," Micah says hollowly, "I never send—"

"Shut up, I'm not done," Kaya glares. " Look, you don't have to send any letters, but when you write to Mr. Anderson, you're not forgiving yourself. You're just reliving your mistakes, over and over and over again. You need to forgive yourself so you can move on from it all. And you can only do that if you write to Shane—and talk to Erin," she nods in the direction where Erin is currently standing. "This is your chance to fix everything!"

Micah cannot swallow the lump in his throat no matter how hard he tries. Biting his lip, he shakes his head again, more vigorously. "I can't, Kaya. I can't! I ignored her texts for weeks before switching my number. I…I ran away. She probably knows all about how I ran away. I can't face her, it's too hard—" he suddenly gasps, "—crap, she'll kick my ass!" He groans. "Oh god, she totally will!"

"Stop being such a baby! She will not—well, maybe a little, but she'll be happy to see you."

"I don't know," Micah says. He looks down at his shoes. "I…"

"Micah...you miss Blaine and Erin, right?" Kaya asks him.

Micah nods slowly. "Yeah."

"And you don't like hiding from them, do you?"

"…No, I don't."

"And you still love Shane?"

There's not a question in his mind. "Always," he says.

"Then what, in the sacred name of J.K. Rowling, are you waiting for? Go! Your destiny awaits you!" Kaya exclaims, gesturing around the corner. "This is your chance to right your wrongs! Go!" And she squeezes his hand lightly, smiling and waiting for him to let go.

But he's still too much of a coward and he needs this girl, this energetic go-getter and brainy booklover and his persistent number one fan.

He needs his friend.

"Come with me?" He asks, hesitantly.

Kaya squeezes his hand again. "I wouldn't dream of letting you do this on your own. You'd mess it up."

They walk around the corner, hand-in-hand and Kaya never lets go.

* * *

It's Valentine's day—the weather is mild and carries the scent of sugar everywhere Kaya goes. She spends it with her friends, or at least, the ones that are single like she is. She doesn't mind too much (okay, maybe she thought Eric was going to maybe ask her out), because Grace wrote her a three page essay on why being single on Valentines rocks. It's very convincing, and she reads and laughs about it over her hot chocolate at a café near her house.

She has writing club that evening too, so she excuses herself early, so she can run home and put the finishing touches on her little short romantic fiction. It's not really very good, but she knows what true love looks like now, and it shows. She's more proud of it than anything else she's ever written. She'll send it to Micah through email once she finishes.

As she's pounding away at her keyboard, her mother calls her down, "KAYA. LETTER IN THE MAIL FOR YOU."

Maybe a Valentine? Kaya races back down stairs and snatches the envelope from her mother, ripping into it and putting out a single sheet of notebook paper, written in blue ink.

Her eyes widen as she reads.

_Dear Shane—_

_Once upon a time, there was no prince and no princess. There's just a fairytale. _

_We had no castles and no white horses, no midnight balls or fairy godmothers or anything like that—in fact, we had very little. I've thought over and over about how we were anything but a fairytale. About how the villains always ended up getting the better of us, no matter how hard we tried to fight them. And that's true. It's true that our villains were so much stronger than any villain in any fairytale I've ever read (and I've read a lot, you know) and we were outnumbered, often surrounded and cornered and beaten. But that doesn't mean they were stronger than us. And that definitely doesn't mean we're not a fairytale._

_Remember that one day when you were over at my house, it was raining, and we were watching Hercules, and I told you that you were my hero? You laughed at me, like you laughed when I first told you that you were beautiful, but it's the truth. You're my hero, Shane. I never would have thought it would have been you, but you broke through my storm clouds and rescued me from myself. You're still everything to me. _

_We didn't have an easy time of it. We struggled, day in and day out, just to hold hands, just to be there for each other. But we won. We won because we both survived. We won because they didn't destroy us…only me. But just because I broke doesn't mean that they killed what really mattered, and that was the fact that I love you. I love you. I love you from one side of the world to the other and I will never stop. _

_You're never going to see this letter Shane, because I'm not going to send it to you. I'm going to send myself to you instead._

_And when I see you, I don't know what will happen, or what I'll say, or what you'll do and think of me. We probably won't end up being together. I probably will never kiss you again and the thought terrifies me. But I have to be brave now and I have to heal you, just as you healed me. _

_But one thing I'm sure of is that we'll both get our happy endings. Our story goes like this:_

_Once upon a time, a boy falls in love with a boy. They hold hands and kiss and read books for hours, and one of them dances like a prince and the other is saved. When they are together, nobody can hurt them and they live like tomorrows don't exist. Then, it's time to wake up and say goodbye, and go their separate ways. But they still live happily ever after—just not with each other. _

_You see, no matter how we end, we're still a fairytale, Shane. Crappy McDonald bathroom stalls and all. _

_Love,  
Micah. _


End file.
